Is John McCain ready for a flip on ANWR?

For years, McCain has opposed drilling for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

But McCain said he’d be willing to reconsider that stance as well.

“I would be more than happy to examine it again,” McCain said.

A perfect way for him to do it would be to actually go there (as he’s rightfully demanded that Senator Obama go to Iraq), and then standing there, in the barren wasteland, cameras rolling, point out the area that would be affected, how far away the beautiful mountains are, how tiny a percentage of the area would be impacted, etc., and say “I have always been in favor of the environment, and have opposed drilling up here for that reason. But with gas at four dollars a gallon, much of the price being driven by speculation that Congress will continue to oppose opening up new supplies, and now that I’ve seen how minimal the impact will be on the refuge as a whole, I agree that it’s perfectly reasonable and appropriate to tap this huge resource for the American people, and the world.”

It would be a huge win for him politically, and it has the additional virtue of being good policy.

By the way, this wouldn’t be a “flip flop,” which is a term that applies to changing one’s position multiple times depending on the political winds. This would be a single flip, based on dramatically changing economic circumstances, rather than politics. As Keynes once said, “when confronted with new facts, sir, I change my opinion. What do you do?”

One other point–this would also be a perfectly reasonable justification for Obama to change his position on Iraq, given the progress in the last year. But unlike a McCain flip on ANWR, it might kill him politically, by sending the nutroots to Ralph Nader.